Birthday Boy

Saturday was Jacob's 12th birthday. Unbelievable, really. Twelve years since he was born? Seems like a week and a half. I can still remember everything about that day like it was yesterday. It's almost sad to think that he's way more than halfway out of my house. Actually, it's very sad.

Anyway, last in the morning I took him and his sister over to the stone house for some sledding. Having just bought two nice sleds that morning, I figured the kids were ready for some serious sledding. I was right, but only half right.

Jacob took to the hill and didn't want to let up. He must have gone down two dozen times in the two hours we were there. It was literally slide down the hill, walk back up to the top and get right back on the sled. To the right you can see him carrying his new sled. Actually, I didn't give either one of the sleds to either one of the kids. They were both given to both of them. Therefore, there was no fighting about which one they were going to use. I'm so smart. And they call my sister oeyes1.

Hannah, on the other hand, hit her head on the very first run and was never the same until we left. Well, let me take that back. For a while she was very grumpy and didn't want to go down the hill at all. But when we started going down together, all three of us on two connected sleds, she was ready to go for it again. To the left you can see her in her grumpy state.

The snow was very, very icy and very hard, so I can see why she would not be anxious for that to happen again. When we all went down together, however, we stayed going straight down the hill and no one was hurt again. Below you can see videos of them on the hill with their brand new sleds. Perfect day for sledding.

Yesterday's picture

I just took this picture yesterday on the way home from work. I thought it was a nice, idyllic scene. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Yesterday's Snow

The snow here yesterday was beautiful, but very dangerous. Salt trucks laid down salt and sand yesterday morning on major roads. By the afternoon, however, it was all gone because it rained almost all day before changing into snow. Consequently, it was almost as if the roads had not been treated at all. And the bad thing about the snow was that it started falling in earnest right as the evening commute started. There were people in their cars for up to 7 or 8 hours trying to get home from work. It only took me an hour and 40 minutes. It is usually a 40-minute drive. Twenty-four miles. That's it. Top speed was 27 mph.

On the way to work this morning I saw at least a dozen cars stranded in the ditch. I was very blessed to get home safely, though when I did get there I had to park in the road. The car would not get up the driveway. This morning I went out to discover that it had been buried by the snowplows coming through the neighborhood. I'm tired today because of the snow I had to shovel this morning (an hour and 40 minute job).

It's all good, though. I'm thankful for the safe travel last night. I'm thankful for the safe travel today. I'm thankful that I even have a car. And I'm thankful that I have such a good family who tried to shovel the driveway before I got home. The trouble was, it was snowing so hard that they would shovel about five feet, turn around and it was all covered again. They are so dear to me. I love them with all my heart.

The View from my Window

This is the view out of my window here at work. If you'd like to get a larger view of it, just click on the picture. We got some snow overnight and now it's putting down some freezing rain. You can't see it from the picture, of course, but we just had thunder, too. We're supposed to get more snow tonight. I've heard anywhere from 1 to 10 inches. Who knows? The weather is a moving target anymore. Signs of the times, my friend. Signs of the times.

This World's Beauty

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell'd in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth.

(Ode - Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth

The words to this poem haunt me, but not for the reason you might think. Wordsworth could string words together with such clarity and beauty. The only problem is that I don't happen to agree with them. Sure, things have changed from when we were children. Maybe they've changed even more from when Wordsworth was a child. It surely doesn't snow as much around here as it used to. Weather as a whole has become an increasingly inexact science, it seems. There surely is more pollution and fewer trees and other greenery. Maybe that's what he meant by "a glory" having passed away from the earth.

The thing is, I still see so much beauty in the world. I look for it. I cherish it. And when I do see it, I try to capture it by taking a picture or two. Below are some of my favorite nature-ish pictures. I hope you enjoy them.

After the Storm

Isn't winter a beautiful time of year? I love the quiet beauty of a snowstorm, the ice that clings relentlessly to the downspout and the frosty slab that covers a frozen pond. I love the naked trees shivering in the wind, if only for the fact that I know that life still thrives within its frozen branches.

I love when the howling wind picks up a handful of drifted snow and hurls it through the air, momentarily filtering the sun's futile attempt at warmth. I love the glowing fire that lights and heats my home, crackling sparks flying heavenward. I love winter.

Actually, Autumn is my favorite season of the year, Summer my least. Winter falls between the two. But I find rare beauty in the frozen tundra, the arctic blast and children's laughter as they throw the year's first snowballs.

Sometimes old man winter blows harder and colder than you think you are able to bear. The wind whistles through your clothes, chilling your bones to the marrow. Snow whips up off the ground and is blown against your face. Extremities seem to freeze in the cold, icy air. If you've ever experienced a Virginia winter, you know how absolutely freezing it can get, saying nothing of more nether regions.

The winds of adversity also blow extremely cold. Chilling feelings to the core, change, along with its companion, anguish, affect everyone at one time or another. No one is immune to their icy glare, their freezing touch or their shiver-creating breath.

For some, storm after storm batter their good intentions, a veritable Nor'Easter of adversity slamming them with immeasurable intensity. Others, meanwhile, are met with hurricane-force winds that freeze them to the center. Everyone feels the effects of winter, whether you live in a tropical climate or not.

The great thing about night, though, is that morning is right around the corner. Winter always gives way to Spring. Soon, tender shoots will begin to emerge from the thawing ground, buds will sprout from the shivering branches, and the air, that chilling, freezing wind, will surrender to the warming zephyrs of Spring.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. No matter how angry old man Winter looks, Spring is just a little way off. The sun always comes up tomorrow, all you've got to do is hang on.

We got a winter storm last night. It only dumped about an inch of snow on us, just enough to delay schools by two hours. On my way to work I saw the sun rise over the snow-covered hills through a small break in the clouds. It got me to thinking how blessed I am that the Lord is always there. The love of our Savior is always there, ready for us to enjoy...if we will. The clouds will part. The sun will shine. He is over all.

You are a Masterpiece

I usually sit on the back row at church. It’s not because I take a nap during the talks or because I am a back-row slacker. It’s because it’s a short row, and since I usually sit by myself, I like to take up as little room as possible. Yesterday, sitting in the usual spot, I watched as a young family with several small children came and sat in the pew directly in front of me. The mom, herself a rather smallish woman, was harried by her efforts to get the children to remain quiet during the meeting. The children, on the other hand, were trying with all their might to do anything but. After wrestling with them for several minutes, the wise mother stopped, grabbed three pages of paper from a notebook in her bag, and handed one to each of her children, along with one pencil each. Putting her left arm around them all, she leaned over and whispered to them, saying, “If you were invisible, where would you go first?”

Each child, in his turn, grabbed the offered pencil and started scribbling a picture of the place they would go. The youngest, a tender 3-year old, drew a large quantity of squiggly lines all over the page, an incomprehensible morass of nonsense. The other two drew age-appropriate representations of their cherished destinations. At the conclusion of this exercise the mother again extracted three pieces of paper and handed them to the children. “If you could give one person any gift you wanted, what would it be?” she whispered to each one tenderly.

This went on for most of the remainder of the meeting, when she collected all of the papers and stuffed them carelessly into her bag before grabbing the hymnal. It was evident to me that she’d done this a time or two, as, after the meeting, I watched her enter the library and throw the pages into the trash can.

In July of 1508, Michelangelo began work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. Though primarily a sculptor and despite his protestations, Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II to do some fresco painting on the ceiling plaster. Often very arrogant but always dissatisfied with himself and his work, Michelangelo devised a unique and creative scaffolding system that allowed him to work while masses were being celebrated far below. Contrary to popular belief, he did not lie on his back while painting but was rather forced to bend backwards to paint over his head. From this position, a good amount of his paint/plaster mix dripped into his lungs, his neck and back were almost always in pain and arms were constantly burning. The strain eventually took its toll, leaving his vision such that others had to read to him for the rest of his life. He was also left habitually tired and without much of an appetite.

Michelangelo labored for more than four years on the 5,000 square foot frescoes, often having to redo portions he’d already painted because they’d been damaged by mold or dampness. Unbelievably precise, Michelangelo’s masterpiece was an extension of his belief that every stone had a sculpture within it, and that the work of sculpting was but a matter of chipping away each piece that was not actually a part of the statue.

Viewed from below, the ceiling is an intricate work, depicting the creation of the world, the fall of man and other stories from the scriptures. Viewed up close, its complexity is even more astounding. The artist was so concerned with the final product that he can take credit for almost the whole of the work. Though he had assistants who helped him regularly, they mostly did the work of mixing the daily plaster or mixing his colors. He took exceptional care to examine each square inch of the work, painstakingly scraping off mistakes or damaged parts and repainting them until the masterpiece was complete and revealed to the world in November of 1512.

How grateful I am that my Heavenly Father is more like Michelangelo than the woman in church. Though I’m never really thrilled with adversity, I know deep down that it’s the way Heavenly Father rubs out my mistakes and deformities. Every single minute of every single day, He’s there examining each square inch of my character, rubbing off the mold, repairing and repainting, and helping me discover the masterpiece within. As did Michelangelo, He knows there’s a masterpiece within just aching to get out. His work and His glory is to chip away each piece that does not actually belong to final product.

Viewed from far below, human beings are an intricate work with beating hearts, complex brains and other systems that keeping working for a lifetime. View up close, human beings are even more amazing, with more potential than even they, themselves, realize. There are more than six billion people on the earth right now, each with DNA that is distinct and separate from any other person on the planet. Each has an individual character and personality, though with just about the same number of cells and chromosomes. Each is an individual masterpiece, shaped and chiseled by a loving Father and engineered with exceeding care.

It’s not always comfortable being a masterpiece. Each chip taken off hurts, some a little and some a lot. Each stroke of the brush changes the work in some way, and change is never easy. Mold must be removed, mistakes amended and chips smoothed. But if we are patient and allow Him to do His work, at the end, finally, the masterpiece will be revealed to the world and the great artist will be paid. His payment? To be able to allow us into the Celestial Kingdom to dwell with Him forever.

I hope, at least on my account, the Artist is paid His due.

Every Act of Creation - Part V

I worked at rebuilding that garage for nearly three months. Every day after school until dark and all day on Saturdays my time was devoted to helping Mr. Alarcon get it back up. It was hard work. Hammering, nailing, sawing were daily activities, and I went home most every day with a new blister to show off to my brother.

Each time I went over to Mr. Alarcon's house, though, the guilt over what I'd done subsided just a little bit more. It helped to know that I was helping right something I set so wrong, even if it was an accident.

One by one the other guys came forward and admitted their roles in the affair, too. My brother was the last one to rat on himself. They all started coming over and helping, too, and before we knew it, the garage looked as good as new.

Not so with the Packard, unfortunately. I was irreplaceable, and there was nothing any of us could do to bring it back. It was gone for good. Many were the times when I would see Mr. Alarcon looking longingly at the charred body of his favorite possession. To this day I wish I could have resurrected the car right on the spot.

One day, several weeks after my confession, Mr. Alarcon put his grizzled hand on my shoulder. We were sitting on the roof of his new garage soaking in some of the cool air before we finished nailing on the tarpaper shingles. Turning my head, I looked up into those dull blue eyes and smiled. "Boy," he said in his thick Italian accent, "what made you come forward anyway?"

I pushed the lump in my throat a little further down so I could tell him of the guilt I felt and how I had carried it around for a whole weekend. But try as I did, the reason just wouldn't come out. Tears did, though, and lots of them.

Pulling me closer, Mr. Alarcon pulled off my ballcap, rubbed my head and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Mr. Alarcon!" I sobbed in his arms. "I didn't mean to do it!"

"I know, son," he said softly. "But don't worry. That car never ran worth a darn and I wanted to rebuild the garage anyway." That was all he said for a long time. Then suddenly, he sat down on a stack of shingles and laughed heartily.

The tears stopped momentarily while I fixed my own blue eyes on the tears coming from his. To my surprise I saw they were tears of joy.

"You know, son," he chuckled even harder. "I guess those hornets won't be coming back any time soon!"

Gathering my shocked senses, I sat on the roof next to the old man, and before I knew it I was laughing right along with him, tears streaming from my bloodshot eyes.

Pablo Picasso once said that "every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction." The day I burned down Mr. Alarcon's garage an eternal friendship was created. Until the day he died I went to his house every Saturday afternoon and listened to his fascinating stories. I loved him, and I guess it took burning down his garage to do it.

I grew up a lot thanks to him and his garage. I learned what hard work is and that work is what life is all about. It isn't about who's got the best toys or the power or the popularity or fame. It's about working hard and being happy. Helping him rebuild his garage I worked really hard for the first time in my life and I was happy - really happy.

Mr. Alarcon showed me how happy he was, too. His prized '49 Packard was a charcoal-broiled junkheap and his garage was a total loss. But he could still laugh at his misfortune. It takes a lot of character to be able to do that. It takes a lot of enthusiasm for life. Mr. Alarcon had it.

I've tried to emulate that kind of passion in my own life. I don't always succeed, but at least now I have the confidence to laugh at many of the ill winds that sometimes give me that wind-blown look. After all, tomorrow is another day.

Mr. Alarcon died about five years after we finished rebuilding his garage. I was only about 17, but I felt worse then than I'd ever felt before. It took me years to get over the pain. I still think of him often.

In his will, among several other things, he left me the hammer we'd both used to do all that work. It was all beat up and scarred, but he'd printed my name on the head with his shaky handwriting and on the handle he'd engraved the words "Thanks for your friendship. I'll always love you."

I'll always love you, too, Mr. Alarcon. I'm glad I burned down your garage.

"I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man." George Washington

Every Act of Creation - Part IV

Sunday was probably the worst day I'd ever had. Church was bad enough, and having to listen to Sister Christianson's Sunday School lesson on honesty wasn't even the worst part. The worst came that night when Mr. Alarcon himself came to our house to thank mom for the casserole she'd sent over that afternoon.

He looked at me, sitting on the stairs that led to my bedroom, with a tear in his dull blue eye. His gaze seared me to the middle of my backbone. As long as I live I'll never forget that look.

He was only there for a few minutes, but after seeing his gaunt face, his quivering hands and especially those haunting eyes, I felt so guilty that I crossed the street and sat on our snow-sledding hill for an hour and a half, crying and wishing there was something I could do to make it all better.

Monday morning came much sooner than I had hoped it would, though. That was always the case, but this particular weekend had passed much more rapidly than I ever thought one could. Before I knew what was going on, I was in Mrs. McKee's geometry class watching her explain what a theorem is.

"Are you getting any of this?"

There was no answer.

"Yo!" someone said, poking me in the shoulder. "Are you getting any of this?"

I looked vacantly to my right and saw Wooly looking at me impatiently. He was still innocently oblivious to the fact that his best friends had been the culprits in Saturday's diabolic inferno.

"Huh?" was all I could muster.

"Are you ok?" he asked quizzically.

"Yea, I'm fine, I guess. What did you ask me?" I still wasn't quite all there.

"Do you understand any of this junk she's saying?"

I shook my head. "I haven't heard a word she said."

Then came the question that rocked my little world and would change it forever. "How many pages is your report for Mr. K?"

"Mr. K?"

"Our English teacher. Seventh period. Remember? You know. The Tell-Tale Heart?"

My breath quickened.

My heart beat wildly.

My eyes widened drastically.

Poor Edgar had never told me his harrowing story, and now I was meat on a stick.

"Oh, geez!" I exclaimed. "I forgot all about it!"

I quickly took out my English book and started flipping to page 277. I began to read. "True," it said, "nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am..."

You can say that again! I was even more nervous now than I had been when Mr. Alarcon came to the house. The fire, for a moment, was all but forgotten. All I could think of now was Mr. K and the "F" I would get if I didn't hand in the assignment.

"Study Hall!" I cried, right in the middle of Mrs. McKee's explanation of analytic proofs. She stopped talking and everyone in the class looked at me. "Sorry," I said disconcertedly, burying my head behind the sweet-smelling cotton that covered Bob's back.

I had Study Hall in the library during fifth period. It was a perfect place to read and I figured I could finish the story there and then start on the paper. I could complete that in sixth period History. No sweat. We never did anything in there anyway but listen to Mrs. Weaver's ramblings. Many were the day we'd make little bird noises just to make her crazy.

There were five big tables in the library and only six of us were in the class, so I grabbed one to myself and started in on Poe's masterpiece.

"I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him." Killed an old man? I read on.

"...at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of a spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye."

Wiping small beads of sweat from my brow, I stood and went to the window. I remembered the eyes I had seen the day before, and they haunted me.

I waited several minutes, breathing in deep gulps of the fresh air from the open window before I sat down and continued. "I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more."

My pulse quickened.

I gasped for air.

Sweat ran down the side of my face.

My hands shook savagely.

But my eyes were fixed irretrievably on the page.

"It was a low, dull, quick sound - much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath - and yet the officers heard it not."

The beating of the second hand on the clock echoed thunderously in my ears.

"They heard! - they suspected! - they knew! - they were making a mockery of my horror! - this, I thought, and this I think."

A guilt-laden agony racked my soul! I looked around, knowing everyone in the room knew I was the culprit, I stood, quivering with remorse, and walked to the librarian. "I have to talk to the principal," I said rapidly and vacantly. The last thing I remember was getting a face full of floor.

When I awoke, the principal, Mr. McDonald, and Mrs. Hogan, the school nurse, were hovering over me holding smelling salts to my nose. I remembered the awful shame and shouted, "Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! I did it! I did it! I burned down Mr. Alarcon's garage!"

Coming soon - Part V - Conclusion

Every Act of Creation - Part III

Mr. Alarcon lived in a little brick ranch-style house on the other side of the neighborhood. He was a crusty old Italian guy who had immigrated to the US back in the thirties. He still talked with a heavy accent. He was an all right guy, for the most part, and we all liked him.

He lived in the house with his sister Irma and a giant dog that had once eaten a live squirrel in front of three screaming kids. It just left the furry tail kind of wagging itself on the front lawn. The kids were never the same. Neither was the squirrel.

The hornet's nest was on the back of his garage and had been there since early spring, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger. Jimmy Dills, who was Tommy's little brother, was only about three and a half and had been stung about seven times one day during the summer. His back swelled up so much it looked like he was carrying a basketball around under his shirt.

But we were more careful than that. We'd hucked rock after rock at that nest and had never gotten stung once. Of course, we could run a lot faster than a three and a half year old.

That day, as we walked, we planned our daring escapade with great precision. Chris ran home and grabbed a Mason jar full of kerosene from the garage, and I tore off part of an old rag I'd found back in the new house. The plan was that we would soak the rag in the kerosene, light it with one of the remaining matches, and throw it at the nest, which would then go up in smoke.

Only, it didn't happen that way.

When I pulled the rag out of the jar, Bob lit it with the match. I didn't have time to throw it anywhere before it became a giant ball of fire.

We stood there in shock as the fire made its way rapidly toward the garage. "Hurry!" was all I had to say before everyone was stomping and kicking at the fire to try and put it out. In the confusion, however, the jar of kerosene got knocked over and the fire was out of control.

When the fire trucks arrived, we were ten blocks away, panting and puffing with enough adrenaline and terror pumping through us to kill a bull elephant. Even that far away, we could see the black smoke billowing into the heavens like a genie coming out of an evil magic lamp.

None of us said anything for a long time. No one had to. Everyone knew we were in big league trouble.

We stood there for several minutes like five quaking aspens being blown feverishly by the wind, transfixed by the ebony cloud that loomed ominously on the horizon of our lives.

"What are we going to do?" Bob finally asked with a nervous whimper. "We're going to jail, man, we're going to jail!"

Chris agreed, shaking his head anxiously. "Geez! We've really done it this time! We're in so much trouble."

My brother just cried, and loudly.

"Listen," I said authoritatively. "We can't tell anybody about this. If we do, we're going to jail for sure. We've got to keep quiet. So far, nobody knows it was us. If we don't tell, nobody will ever know."

Rick nodded profusely. "He's right! If we tell anybody we did this, we're toast! We've got to promise that nobody will talk!"

Looking at each other in that instant I realized how well we banded together when the chips were down. The only one we really had to worry about was my brother.

"You won't tell, will you bro?" I said. The other guys looked at him threateningly.

He eeked out an "I won't tell" that seemed to placate everyone but Bob. Bob was naturally very suspicious, and when it comes to little kids, he trusted them about as far as he could drop them. "You tell, kid, and you're history," he shouted, sticking his finger in my brother's chest. "You understand?"

I stepped between them. "Leave him alone, Bob. He's just a little kid. He won't tell, will ya?"

I flashed a loving but stern smile.

"I won't tell," he whispered.

And he didn't. When mom told us the news that night at the dinner table, he gave an Academy Award winning, virtuoso performance in his portrayal of the surprised son. "You're kidding!" he said with seemingly sincere amazement and wide eyes. "How did it happen?" He was magnificent.

"Mr. Alarcon said he thinks it probably happened because he stored a lot of gas and old rags in there," said mom.

"Was anybody hurt?" asked dad.

I swallowed hard and shoved a big piece of cauliflower in my mouth. Looking over at my brother I saw that he had done the same. I really didn't want to hear the answer to that question.

"Not from what I hear," mom replied. "But Mr. Alarcon's car was burned up."

Mr. Alarcon had the nicest '49 Packard Station Sedan that was ever made. It had white-wall tires all around its woodie frame and the standard Packard hood ornament on the front. He used to take us for rides around town on Sunday afternoons. To him, that car was more like a member of the family than just a vehicle. He was the original owner.

"Oh, not the Packard," said my dad, who was himself a car enthusiast. "What a shame. That thing was beautiful."

I looked at my brother. He looked back at me. We both looked down at our dinner, sick with guilt. Neither one of us looked up again until we'd choked down the mint chocolate chip ice cream mom had given us for dessert. It was my favorite, but for some reason, that night it just didn't taste the same.

Coming soon - Part IV

Every Act of Creation - Part II

About thirty minutes later the front doorbell let out its lively ring. By this time, Mom was up and around, worrying about how the house looked for company. But it wasn't company. It was just Wooly, Chris and Rick.

"What are you boys going to do today?" mom asked.

After what seemed like an eternity of kicking at the carpet with our black Chucks trying to think up a good lie, Bob said, "We really haven't figured it out yet."

"Well, just be careful." Mom was always worried about that. I guess all moms are.

"Well will, ma! See ya!" I said, trotting energetically out the door.

"Way to lie to my mom, Bob," I said once outside, only half seriously.

"Well," he said, "I had to say something."

Passing the Turner's big yellow house on the corner, I turned around and saw my kid brother running quickly behind us.

"Oh, great," sighed Wooly. "Just what we need, a little kid to tag along."

"Hey, it's ok," I replied. "He's all right. Besides, I told him he could come with us today. So leave him alone, will ya?"

When we got to the house, Rick was the first one inside. He found a box of nails and some staples and I found some Elmer's glue and sandpaper. Bob's discovery of a bag full of assorted goodies such as paint, tubing and spackle completed the booty.

We played with our find for nearly an hour before someone suggested we do something else. I was the first on in the rafters. The house was still pretty much a skeleton, and we pretended it was a pirate ship and I was the dreaded Captain Kidd. We'd heard of him in our literature books, but none of us had ever read enough to know exactly who he was. We just knew he was a pretty nasty guy.

"All right, you scurvy dogs," said I in my best guttural buccaneer growl, "hoist up the mizzen mast and swap the poop deck. We've got a long sea mile to go a'fer the journey's through." It was very good outlaw talk, but we had excellent imaginations.

After an hour or so of playing pirate, in which each of us took his turn being his favorite sea dog, we all decided to see what was in the basement. I had always been afraid of basements.

I had a monster living in mine that would try to get me every time I went down there. He did that until I was about fifteen, then, all of a sudden, he moved out. But I wasn't going to let my irrational fear of basements stop me from exploring this one. After all, this house wasn't finished. Maybe the monster hadn't had time to move in yet.

There was no light when we got to the bottom of the steps. The cool, concrete dampness of the air struck us all and sent shivers down each spine. "I don't like this," Bob said.

"Yea, I don't either," said Chris. "Let's go back up."

"What in the world are you afraid of?" I asked. "Monsters?"

Laughing nervously, I could tell they all had monsters in their basements, too.

"Wait a minute," said Wooly. "I found a pack of matches upstairs. Let's have a look around."

All right, Wooly! Monsters hate fire!

Holding the matches out in front of us, we explored the various nooks and crannies. It smelled of concrete and moldy water and there really wasn't much to see. There were just some bare rafters and an open bag of cement in the corner. Even that, though, wasn't enough to motivate us to stay down there any longer. We only had four matches left, and every time one would burn out we could all feel the monster of the house getting closer.

Back upstairs, Wooly started for home. "Where are you going," I asked.

Wooly turned around and pulled his jeans up past his belly button. "I've got piano lessons this afternoon," he said. "I've got to go or my mom said she'd never let me out of the house to play ball again. I'll see you guys a little later."

We could all empathize with Wooly's situation. We'd all heard the very same thing from our moms for one thing or another. We always believed it, too, although I'm not sure why. Our moms were always trying to get us out of the house.

"Well, what do you want to do now?" said Chris. "We've still got a little while before it's time to go in for lunch."

After standing there for several minutes in complete silence, we all started looking to Bob to come up with a brilliant plan. After all, it was his responsibility.

"What?" he said with a dumb look on his face.

"What do you mean, 'what?’? We're waiting for you to tell us what we're doing next."

Bob turned his head from corner to corner and from ceiling to floor. "Well, we could go down to the dump and watch them bury the trash."

A huge sigh came from each one of us. "We did that two weeks ago, Bob," said Chris. "Isn't there something better we can do?"

Bob scrunched his eyes up in much the same way Wooly had when Mr. K called him Mr. Woolwine. "We could go climb the stairs at the school annex and throw Mr. Turner's rotten tomatoes off."

Another sigh. "Bob we did that last week," I said. "Besides, I don't think he's got any left."

"Oh, yea," he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets in frustration. "Hey!" he bellowed, pulling his hands out. "I still have four matches that Wooly gave me downstairs. We could do something with them!"

We all liked the idea. The only question was what we were going to do with them.

"We could go flick them at Karen Staggle!" said Bob.

We all laughed. None of us liked her much, but the idea wasn't a very good one.

"We could build a fire and pretend we're in the Yukon."

"That's a little better, Bob, but it's too warm out to do that," said Chris.

Bob sighed. He was starting to lose patience when his eyes lighted up like a bonfire on a cold night in January.

"We could go burn up the hornet's nest over on Mr. Alarcon's garage!"

I looked at Chris and he looked at Bob. Bob looked at my kid brother and my brother looked at me. With eyes filled with excited anticipation, we headed toward the garage.

Coming soon - Part III